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Dessert

Pralines

A sweet confection made from powdered sugar, maple syrup, cream, and nuts, cooked until a soft ball forms.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Pralines

Ingredients

Directions

Make the praline

  1. In a saucepan, combine powdered sugar, maple syrup, and cream.

  2. Boil the mixture until it forms a soft ball when tested in cold water.

  3. Remove from heat and beat until creamy.

  4. Stir in the nuts.

Shape

  1. Drop small piles onto buttered paper using a spoon.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Maple syrup + nutstop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together67 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Sugar + maple syruptop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,252 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Maple syrup + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together607 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Cream + nutstop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together886 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Powdered sugar
Dissolves into the syrup to provide sweetness and body for the candy.
Maple syrup
Adds sweetness and flavor, and its sugars help the candy set smooth.
Cream
Adds fat and moisture, giving the praline a softer, creamier texture.
Hickory nuts or pecans
Add crunch and nutty flavor that contrast with the creamy base.

The step that matters

Boiling to soft ball stage. Cooking the syrup to the soft ball stage controls its sugar concentration. Too little cooking leaves the pralines runny, while overcooking makes them hard and grainy.

Swap the nuts

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, maple syrup, cream):

  1. Pecansfits about as well
  2. Cashew nutfits about as well
  3. Almondfits about as well
  4. Nutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, maple syrup, cream. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

More pralines recipes

Pecan 7New Orleans 3Orange Flower 3 See all 7 →

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